


Dem Bums (Are in Love)

by The Stephanois (orphan_account)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Baseball, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Dodgers, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pre-Canon, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, in which steve is basically eddie stanky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:19:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23675254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/The%20Stephanois
Summary: Stevie Rogers was a medical and athletic mystery: a short, half-deaf asthmatic who on any given day looked like he'd taken a detour onto Ebbets Field on his way to the hospital. He couldn't run, couldn't field, and he certainly couldn't hit – so, as the more cynical of their fans put it, he fit right in with the Dodgers.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 8
Kudos: 47





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> god, remember sports? that thing we used to have that let us scream bitterly at each other about something other than politics or religion? sure do miss 'em.
> 
> this fic requires a little suspension of disbelief that someone like steve would make it in baseball (even the '37 dodgers), but hey, that's what fanfic is _for_!

_Sometime in the late '30s..._

  
  


Stevie Rogers was a medical and athletic mystery: a short, half-deaf asthmatic who on any given day looked like he'd taken a detour onto Ebbets Field on his way to the hospital. He couldn't run, couldn't field, and he certainly couldn't hit – so, as the more cynical of their fans put it, he fit right in with the Dodgers.

What he _could_ do was squat for hours, powered seemingly from spite alone, and catch the wildest of pitches. He had an eye for weakness unrivaled in the National League.

The mouth on him, unfortunately, was also unrivaled.

He received more than one cleat or fist to the face from batters sick of the heckling. And as a bench jockey he was even worse: never sitting when he could hang out the lip of the dugout, hollering abuse at any and all deemed deserving via the convoluted equations calculated in his head. He was the only man in the league whose own manager would yell, “Stick it in his ear!” to the opposing team's pitcher when he was up to bat. He took so many hits at the plate, his on-base percentage was actually one of the highest on the team.

(“There's something about the way he looks at you,” said Giants' pitcher Slick Castleman, speaking to the Herald Tribune. “You know you want to strike him out, that it'll be easy besides, but next thing you know – bam! You've pounded him with the ball. He's an irresistable target.”)

Being a player of such mean talents and attitude, he was no favorite. He was beloved only in the eyes of the most determined of Brooklyn fans – and, of course, James Buchanan “Buck” Barnes, one of the Dodgers' starting pitchers.

Now, Buck Barnes – there was a real ball player.

He could do it all: pitch, hit, field. His rising fastball tricked even the keenest of eyes and most disciplined of minds. His elbow never wore out. His ball always crossed the plate exactly where he intended it to – exactly where his catcher Rogers told him to put it.

Off the field, he had a reputation for light womanizing and an easy-going attitude. His was the handsomest smile on any baseball card, a card that had the rare distinction of getting pinned up alongside bedroom vanities at a rate equal to being tucked in the spokes of a bicycle wheel.

His only real flaw was his unwavering loyalty to the most irritating man in baseball.

Best friends since childhood, Barnes and Rogers were inseparable on both school yard and ball field. They were local boys, and frequently discussed with all due possessive familiarity: _Buck and Stevie, don't think they got it today. They're a shame to the damn neighborhood._ Or: _You better keep your filthy mouths shut about our boys. Ain't no_ _better players in all of New York than Buck and Stevie._ The fans at Ebbets Field were able to, via that special brand of magical thinking that one applies to One's Team, simultaneously project both pride and wrath in equal measure towards the pair.

This being baseball, it should not surprise anyone if any of the other cardinal sins make an appearance at one point or another.


	2. Chapter 2

“I swear, Barnes,” said Mungo before a game one day in mid-August, “I _swear_ , I swear to the almighty God in Heaven and any other bums hanging around, if Stevie starts a fight tonight, I'll beat his scrawny lil' mick ass myself, don't think I won't. Sick of this shit, I'm _sick_ of it. You hear me?”

Bucky had been in the other man's position too many times in life to do anything but gamely nod along. After a moment's reflection, he also turned his head and spat. Brown tobacco: only five minutes' steeping in his cheek, but sometimes a man had to make a point.

The other pitcher continued to pace along the dugout. “Swear to God he picked a fight with Weeping Willie the other day—”

“Weeping Willie had it coming,” muttered Bucky, a reluctant partisan.

It was a mistake; Mungo pivoted and stabbed an angry finger at him. “That's the problem, that right there. You always back him up, _always_ , no matter how wrong he is.”

“That ain't true,” protested Bucky. “Why, just last week—”

Mungo cut him off, dismissive. “Don't count, you was hammered.”

Bucky was widely known as a man who could endure the unendurable. Like pitching nine innings in 100-degree heat or sitting two nights on a bus next to Stevie when he's got a full head of steam. But occasionally, very occasionally, something in him snapped and he'd get into it with his best friend. There wasn't nobody who didn't hear about it real quick, because these fights, they always got ugly. But the causes were usually opaque to all bystanders and sometimes even Steve himself, because Steve was the dumbest smartass Bucky had ever met.

Last week hadn't been one of those mystery fights, though. Last week had been about baseball, and their future – or rather, _Steve's_ future, since he apparently saw them as distinct, separate paths.

Anyway, Bucky didn't want to think about last week. He didn't know why he'd brought it up.

“Stevie's not gonna pick a fight tonight,” he said instead. He tugged the brim of his hat down over his eyes, folded his arms across his chest and slouched down on the bench, trying to signal that the conversation was over.

But Mungo wasn't the best at reading signals. “Yeah? You some kind of fortune teller now, or does the pipsqueak confide in you beforehand or somethin'?”

“It's Philly,” said Bucky, waving in the direction of the other dugout.

“So?”

“So Steve never wants to fight anyone with a worse record than our own.”

Mungo's expression twisted. “That some kind of _code of honor_?”

“He don't like bullies.” Bucky shrugged. “Maybe it would feel too close to bullying.”

The other pitcher thought about that for the length of five seconds. Finally he said, “That's the stupidest shit I ever heard.”

  
  


  
  


_Ten years or so previous..._

Long as he could remember, Bucky wanted to play in the big leagues.

“What's your problem, Barnes?” howled his catcher, removing his hand from his prized new glove and making a show of shaking it out.

Bucky jogged over to pick up the baseball, since it clearly wasn't getting thrown back. “What's the matter?” he demanded.

“You throw too damn hard,” said the boy, backing away with a half-embarrassed, half-angry twist to his mouth. Before Bucky could make up his mind whether to retort or wheedle, he was already gone. Great, thought Bucky.

But then there was tiny Steve Rogers, stepping up in the lot without a glove. “I'll throw with you,” he said.

Bucky tossed his baseball up and down in one hand and eyed him skeptically. He looked for all the world like a pitch might take him like a wrecking ball into the back wall.

“I'm not gonna go easy,” he warned. But Steve only shrugged tightly, his chin coming up.

Bucky echoed his shrug with a far more careless one. He focused on his wind-up, trying to do it just like Dazzy Vance. His pitch was true, the ball shooting unerring at Steve's narrow chest. The other boy caught it; his body swayed but he didn't take a step back. When he looked down at the ball in his small hands, his expression was one of faint surprise, which turned unreadable when he looked back up at Bucky.

Bucky waved his glove. “Well?” he said. He half expected him to toss the ball back and walk away. But then:

“I can do this all day,” said Steve. He never did talk like a small guy, even back then.

And they did, they threw the ball all day. When the afternoon was getting on, slinking inevitably into evening, Bucky reluctantly stopped throwing and said he had to be getting home. Steve's palms by then were a deep pink. They must've been burning hot and sore, but he'd never once complained.

Hesitating, Bucky asked in a rush, “See you tomorrow?”

A decade on, he wouldn't remember almost anything from that day, like what that first boy's name was, or even what month it had been. But Bucky remembered Steve's surprised answering smile – the shocking sweetness of it across the dusty, darkening street.

  
  


  
  


_During their rookie year..._

They had runners on first and third, and were down four at the bottom of the eighth. It was only an exhibition game, but when you were a rookie there was no such thing. Every game counted. Stepping onto the field held as much shine and excitement as it had the first time. It also still carried all the weight and anxiety.

Bucky wanted to win.

He planted his feet and tugged his uniform at the shoulders. He stretched the hand holding the bat backwards, getting a full feel of the space. He brought the bat up to position and fixed his eyes on the pitcher.

“Alright, Bucky, baby! C'mon, c'mon,” shouted Steve, clapping from the dugout.

Bucky didn't look over – _eyes on the goddamn ball, Barnes_ – but he could hear him anyway. He always could. Didn't matter how loud the crowd was. Of course, this being '36 and spring training besides, the crowds weren't so hot. But he kinda thought it could be Game 7 of the World Series and he'd still be able to pick Steve's voice out from a crowd of thousands.

The wind up: Bucky's eyes analyzing the form and judging it against his own, the pitch—

The muscles in his arm jumped with the effort of holding back his swing. Ball! cried the umpire.

“Goddamn right!” went Steve. “Was he even aiming for the glove?”

Bucky cleared his throat, spat. He dragged his shoes in the sand, shook out his shoulders, and reset. The pitcher was glaring at him now. It had been eight innings of Steve's tireless commentary, and that was plenty long for a grudge to form.

The wind up: the pitcher's eyes narrowed, the pitch—

Bucky jerked his head backwards and the ball shot past inches from where his chin had been. Ball! cried the umpire.

“What was _that_ , are you kidding me?” went Steve, his delicate fucking sensibilities shocked, just shocked, by the idea that a pitcher might try to hit a batter. His disbelief might read better if he wasn't still sporting beneath his uniform a deep purple bruise on his upper left arm from yesterday's game.

Bucky set his jaw. He didn't want to get walked; the bases would be loaded then, sure, but they already had two outs and fuckin' Brier was next up to bat. The odds were bad.

He tapped his bat on the ground and reset. He briefly met the pitcher's eyes and narrowed his own. C'mon, you bastard, he thought. His thoughts synced up with Steve's shouts: c'mon, c'mon, c'mon...

The wind up—the pitch— _whop!_

The ball carved a flat white arc to the outfield, clear of any of the scrambling players. The noise in the half-empty seats rose as Bucky threw the bat and ran for it. The ball wasn't going to clear the fences, but if the outfielder throw was slow enough, if the other runners were fast enough—

After an undignified scramble in the outfield, the two runners ahead of Bucky made it home. The ball came sailing towards third, and Bucky slid for safety.

Dirt exploded up around his face and the world was obliterated, down to just the burn along his legs and the impact of the plate on his hands, seconds, precious microseconds before the hand smacked his arm.

The crowd was cheering as he recovered himself and stood, claiming his rightful filthy victory on third base. For the first time since he'd set out with the bat, he allowed himself to look over to the dugout.

Steve was jumping, his arms were swinging— he was yelling something, Bucky finally couldn't catch what. But same as he could detect the angle of a pitch coming at him with the speed of a train, he could make out the expression on Steve's face. His heart swelled and—

And, anyway, Bucky wanted to win.

  
  


  
  


_On the road for away games..._

When they went out drinking with the team, Steve usually had only a beer or two and then he'd be out, wiped, limp against Bucky's side like a fan's pennant flag in a bad stretch. Quiet for once.

He gave all he had during the games, and Bucky was selfish with it, he let him. A better man than he would probably ask if it was worth it; was it worth seeing his best guy laid low like that. But – Bucky thought it was. He wouldn't let Steve run himself like this for anything less than baseball.

Bucky stayed an hour or two longer, drinking with the guys and twirling pretty girls across the floor. He always made it look real good for the benefit of his teammates, Steve, the whole world. This face he wore was the flip side, the bargain he struck every day to keep playing.

But when the evening grew late, he'd nudge Steve awake and drag his ass back to their room. They always shared, and this was why he loved away games. Back home Steve had his own apartment. He insisted on it, part of his whole strong, independent woman act. Bucky still lived with his folks, because he didn't see the point of having his own place just to live alone.

Bucky had wanted Steve in one way or another for as long as he'd known him.

When they had a tough game at home – if one of the pitchers had a bad day and ran up high counts, risking walks before last second strike-outs, and the innings stretched out interminable the way they could get sometimes – Steve would be out there in proper form through it all. Seemingly tireless. But afterwards he always went straight home, undoubtedly hurting, and there was nothing Bucky could do for him.

He worried about him all the time. But it wasn't just that, or rather, it was so much _more_ than that. Bucky wondered about things, like what Steve did on a quiet evening alone in his apartment, if he put the radio on, if he sat and read by the one lamp in the corner. If so, what did he read? Or maybe he sketched – if so, what did he sketch? What did he _think_ about?

But on the road, they shared a room. Bucky didn't have to wonder about anything.

Back in their room after the bar, Steve kicked off his shoes and face-planted on his bed. He was out cold before he could even slip off his suspenders. Bucky handled that, and afterwards stretched out next to him on the bed: longing, chaste inches away – he always had the lie ready on his tongue, some stupid line that he was drunk and this bed was closer to the door, but Steve never once asked him about it.

Sometimes Steve woke up in the middle of the night, gasping and reaching for a leg muscle that had seized up, a wicked charley horse brewed up from squatting for hours behind home plate. Bucky, his previous drunk act all for show, always woke up immediately and reached out to coax the muscle into letting up and relaxing.

It was just something they did and never spoke about. At home, Steve got by on his own, like he said he wanted – but on the road he was Bucky's to care for.

  
  


  
  


_A week ago..._

“I'm thinking – just, y'know, maybe I should quit after this season,” Steve said to him.

Bucky felt like he took a ball to the side of the head. His vision swam and he could have swore he even staggered. But after he blinked a couple times, he was still standing in front of Steve's sink, hands in the cooling dishwater. Steve looked at him from the small kitchen table with an open expression, his blue eyes completely guileless.

“But. But we just got in. Steve,” he said, turning in place, hauling his hands out to drip on the floor so he could sketch a baffled gesture in the air between them, “Steve, we've only just _started_.”

You don't quit the big leagues after your second year. More often the big leagues quit you. That was the natural order of things. Trust Steve to try to fuck with the natural order.

“I'm not saying _you_ should quit,” Steve hastened to say.

And the thing you have to understand about Steve was, he never let anything drop, and he caught everything but the important stuff.

Steve cared so much about _everything_ , and Bucky couldn't really bring himself to care about anything. In his heart there was Steve, and baseball, and his family, and that was pretty much it. He was fine with that; plenty of people had far less.

There was a time when the only thing Steve wanted was to play alongside Bucky. They were of the same mind on the whole thing, had it all planned out. And it wasn't just dumb kid daydreaming, it was _useful_ ; like when Steve got sick, which he did all the time during the first half of their teens.

Their baseball plans became a touchstone of sorts, a shared dream to hold between their cupped hands. When Steve got too sick to do the holding, Bucky would show up and sit kicking his feet idly in the chair beside his bed. He took over the dreaming for them, mouth spilling endless easy ideas of how it was gonna be when they made it to the big leagues.

But something in Steve didn't stop growing when his body did: dreams and ideas and even his anger just kept getting bigger and bigger, bigger than Bucky. Bigger than baseball, even.

 _Grades like this, you know you could probably go to college_ , teachers used to tell Bucky that last year in school. Sometimes they'd say it in earshot of Steve, who would immediately try to make something out of it. Bucky hated that.

 _You could do something, something that matters,_ he'd say to Bucky as they were practicing later. _Y'know – something important._

_I am. Steve, we are. Me and you, we're gonna be ballplayers._

He couldn't believe after all these years Steve might not feel the supreme _rightness_ of it: Steve calling the pitches and Bucky throwing them. When their eyes locked on the field, it was like an invisible sacred connection bound them together from the mound to the plate.

Baseball had always been the perfect excuse. When they were teammates, no one wondered why they saw each other all the time, why they were so close and lived in each other's pocket. If they didn't have that, if Steve turned his back on it, on _him_ , then where would that leave them?

Where would it leave Bucky?

“I know it's hard, but try not to be so stupid,” he told Steve. He turned back to the dishes.

He didn't say anything more about it until after the next game, after he'd had eight or nine drinks, and then he blew up at Steve in a dark corner of O'Leary's. He didn't remember what he said, really, but the next morning he had a fragmented image in his head. A glimpse of Steve's eyes, huge and dark and genuinely shocked, right before Bucky knocked his chair to the floor and left him.


	3. Chapter 3

He was somewhere near the bottom of the brawl – a brawl he didn't even start, take note, Buck – and one of the Philly players tried to stamp his hand. He yanked it clear just in time, but before he could move to respond in any other fashion, the player was lifted clear out of the melee as if scooped up by a construction crane.

The space he left was quickly filled. Steve shoved and scrambled to extricate himself. Through the unsteady crush of bodies, he glimpsed the man who had tried to stamp him – and Bucky, who had him by the collar of his uniform, his pitching arm wound back to deliver a punch.

_Damnit,_ he thought. In his distraction he was shoved to the ground again.

* * *

Bucky was the smartest knucklehead Steve had ever known. It was a miracle his thoughts ever made it outta his thick skull; headshrinkers could probably write a book about him.

Of the many, many ways in which his best friend was stupid, the very top one – the king, the chief! – was his decade-long refusal to understand that Steve didn't want his help in a fight. He didn't want him stepping in to, to  _rescue_ him, or whatever Bucky thought he was doing, and certainly didn't want him injuring his damn self for the sake of sparing Steve a few measly bruises.

After the game, he tracked Bucky down in the bowels of the club house. He found him hunched over on a bench near the locker room urinals, holding a dripping cloth full of ice against his jaw. Steve took note of the strange, tentative way he was settling his left arm against his side, and all thoughts of easing the hostility of the past week suffered a quick death.

“You know, for someone who claims he wants to play baseball more than anything, you have a funny way of showing it,” he said, walking up to the bench.

Behind him, lockers were shut and bags were grabbed in the rush to vacate the room as soon as possible. Steve, always highly aware of his surroundings, flushed hard; like they needed any more fuel added to the fire of the stories about them. His stomach twisted with anxiety at the thought.

For his part, Bucky didn't appear to notice the commotion at all. He remained as he was: elbows on knees, face turned down, ice pack obscuring his expression.

Steve tossed his catching gear furiously to the side. But when the noise of the impact against the lockers made no further impression on his friend, he hesitated. He didn't know what to make of this new play. He threw a glance over his shoulder, checking that the room had indeed emptied.

“How's your arm?” he asked gruffly.

He stepped forward without waiting for a reply, got right up into the other man's space and cupped his left shoulder socket. Buck twitched at the touch but didn't otherwise move. Steve shook his head, hands pushing at the half-buttoned uniform, dragging it down so he could get at the arm. He slipped a hand beneath the sweat-soaked undershirt and felt the joint. It was hot to the touch, plump and swollen.

“Never mind your stupid face, you should have ice on this,” said Steve. He tugged the cold pack out of a resisting hand and put it to better use. 

Now that he could no longer hide his expression behind the ice, Bucky heaved a sigh and angled a glare up at him.

“ _What_?” said Steve, nettled. “I didn't even start this one. And I certainly didn't ask you to go one on one with that Philly. That's all on you, pal.”

Something dark and savage flickered in Bucky's eyes, and he straightened up from his hunch, pushing into the hand Steve was using to keep the ice in place against his shoulder. Steve had only a second of wariness, of  _what is he doing—_ before Bucky reached out and got a grip on his hips.

It was an unmistakable move. He didn't do anything with it, though he'd only need to drag Steve forward a few inches to get him pressed up between his spread knees, and then they'd both be in trouble. Instead he held Steve in place, hands possessive and undeniable in their intent.

Melt water was bleeding through the cloth pack in Steve's hand, dripping everywhere, but neither of them seemed to notice. 

“You gonna make a thing of this _now_?” Steve demanded, throat dry. When Bucky's mouth curled faintly in triumph, he realized immediately he'd miscalculated; by not playing dumb, he lost the game. He might've just lost the whole damn series.

“I think it's been _a thing_ for a while now, champ, don't you.” 

His hold was uncompromising. Steve, who knew the athletic capabilities of Bucky's body intimately and knew how easily he could lift him, put him anywhere and anyway he wanted, found it hard to reply for a moment. They were still in the damn locker room. This was beyond reckless.

“Is this because of what I said? Last week, I mean.” It had been days of strange, tense silences and Bucky looking moody as hell whenever Steve was in his presence. The whole thing was driving Steve crazy.

Bucky swallowed. “You tell me.”

“No, not here,” said Steve quickly. He forced himself to step back. 

Bucky let go of him instantly like he'd been slapped, his hands dropping to grip the edges of the bench instead, knuckles turning white. He said, subdued, “Then where?”

He sounded like he'd already lost. This, from the guy who still batted in the ninth like he could single-handed make up a double-digit point deficit. Steve could only shake his head and marvel. But he didn't have time to berate him. He wanted to get out of the locker room before anyone else came by and picked up on the tension.

“Come to my place later,” he said. 

And then, because Bucky was still staring up at him like he'd just been told baseball was canceled forever and it was his fault besides, Steve couldn't stop himself – he darted back into his friend's space. Hand grasping the loose neck of his unbuttoned uniform, tugging him forward off the bench, he pressed a quick, hard kiss to his mouth.

Bucky tasted of sweat and tobacco. Steve was years gone on him, and despite all the sainted patience and determination to the contrary on his part, he guessed it was always inevitable that their first kiss would be in a ball park. Bucky probably thought this was the height of romance.

Steve drew back and easily evaded Bucky's revived grasping hands. He gave him a long look, glancing only for a few seconds down at the tented front of his trousers and said, “Later, Buck. After the bar.”

Thoughts reassembled themselves swiftly behind Bucky's eyes, and his face twisted with incredulity. “You still want to go to the fuckin'  _bar_ ?”

Steve threw his hands up and said, backing away, “Appearances, Buck. Follow my signals.” 

He made his escape before Bucky could fully recover and throw him into a locker or bend him over a sink. 

  
  


  
  


_When there was a depression on..._

Baseball was something that cost them nothing in a time when it seemed like everything else did.

Days of mayo sandwiches, thin potato soup and not much else. His mother worked long hours, seven-day weeks to keep them both fed and he in his various medicines when the need arose (and the need always arose). Steve worked where he could, same as Bucky: brief stints as newsies, errand boys, occasionally pickpockets. Nothing lasted very long and everything seemed like too little, but there was always baseball.

They couldn't afford to go to any games, of course, but they'd spend hours hanging outside the newspaper offices or on the steps of bars, ears cocked to catch the radio broadcast of a game. The Bambino would knock one of out of the park during the World Series and the time and space between the city across the river and their spot on the sidewalk in Brooklyn collapsed; they'd hear about the hit a second later and Bucky would give a long whistle.

If there was anything worse than being poor and hungry, it was being poor, hungry, and bored. When they weren't listening to a game, they were playing one.

Bucky made it happen, mostly. Steve frequently got too into his own head; he'd stop moving for how angry at the world he'd get. But Bucky was implacable, single-minded, and always bullied him along. Next thing Steve knew, he'd be catching a familiar beat-up baseball and winding his arm back to return it. And, slowly, the world would filter back in around the edges, no longer so threatening or overwhelming.

Bucky could be counted on to be there for him in a time when it seemed like nothing else could.

  
  


  
  


_First practices of their rookie season..._

By the time they were in it for real, Steve was so used to playing with Bucky, looking at Bucky, that he almost didn't notice how beautiful he was anymore. (This was a lie.)

He observed and channeled it all through his catcher's eye: Bucky's liberated hips, his long, well-muscled legs, his elegant pitch. They became something to inure himself against, something to break apart and analyze for weaknesses, lest they become a weakness of his own.

Being in the big leagues in many respects was easier, because they were split up more often. That first season, they were often set to training with more seasoned players, and Steve found he could breathe easier with the slight distance.

But that was before Steve moved out of the Barnes's house, got his own apartment, and apparently caused Bucky to lose his _goddamned mind_.

“You and Barnes fighting or something?” asked Brandt one morning in the early summer. They were done with warm-ups and Steve was to catch for him.

Steve was thankful for the mask caging his face in, disguising the instinctive flush that came to his cheeks. He stayed in position, not shifting an inch in his squat. He said, “Nope.”

Brandt threw a couple more pitches and Steve's hands, the only part of him with the proper size and strength of a man, closed around every one.

“You sure?” said Brandt. “Because he keeps looking over here all pissy and it's started to bug me.”

Steve turned his head fractionally and glanced over to the other pitchers. Sure enough, Bucky was doing a lot of pausing between his pitches, throwing nearly as many glares as balls. He mentally cursed.

“I owe him rent money,” Steve made up. “Moved outta his parents' place last week, haven't paid up yet.”

“Well, shit, boy,” said Brandt. Being the seasoned age of 31, he called all the younger players that. “Always pay your debts, that's what a big league salary is for.”

“You gotta stop staring after me all the goddamned time,” Steve told Bucky that afternoon, as they were walking away from the field in their civvie duds.

Bucky hefted his duffle over his shoulder and said nothing, but two spots of red appeared in his cheeks. He was so damned obvious, he was gonna _kill_ Steve. He was gonna send him to an early grave and then have the gall to stand sulking over it. He probably wouldn't even bring flowers, he'd bring a, a box of peanuts and a beer, or something.

“Didn't think we worked so hard to get us both here only for you stop hanging around, is all,” said Bucky, still staring determinedly ahead.

Steve had a plan, and he was going to stick to it, no matter how sore Bucky got. But it wasn't easy, especially in moments like this. He could see what was going through Buck's head and none of it was good, and he knew he could dispel it all by just opening his mouth and speaking their truth.

But he knew as soon as Bucky figured it all out, he wouldn't stop coming for him. Steve thought he could be fine; he knew he could shut himself down. But Bucky wouldn't be able to stop himself, he's too open, too free. It would probably blow up in their faces, and there they'd be: outcasts in society and baseball. Steve could handle that, but he didn't think Buck could. So: the plan. He was sticking to it.

  
  


_Against their most hated rivals..._

Late June their second year, and Steve still couldn't believe how ugly things got during Giants games.

“Think the train home will be safe?” he said to Bucky over the din of the Giants fans booing as their teammate bunted a ball.

“I don't know, Stevie, maybe we should disguise ourselves and hitchhike,” muttered Bucky. He kept compulsively running a hand over the back of his head; someone was throwing trash from the stands earlier, and he swore he could feel something stuck in his hair, despite Steve's assurances to the contrary.

Steve craned his neck to peer at the field. Giants games were the one time he hung back in the dugout, and his height did him no favors from this vantage point. But he saw Phelps get tagged before second base.

“And that's it,” he sighed. He thumped Bucky's knee. “C'mon, we're up.”

Bucky was having an off day. He gave up too many hits, and they were vicious, awkward hits too, no easy pop up for an outfield to jog and snag out of the air. His frustration was mounting, and it just made his pitching worse; he started ignoring Steve's signs.

After he actually walked Ripple, Steve called for a time out, shoved his mask up his forehead, and made the long journey out to the mound. The jeering from the stands continued unabated by the pause in play.

Bucky was staring at the grass ten feet in front of him, his expression very blank.

“You good, Buck?” he asked, squinting against the afternoon sun, trying to get a good look at him. “What's going on, hey?”

He turned his head and spat, with feeling. “I hate this place. This fucking team, these fucking fans. Can't think straight with all the noise they're making.”

“Yeah, but you don't need to think straight,” Steve said mildly. Bucky's eyebrows twitched upwards. “You need to follow my signals. Why aren't you following my signals, Buck?”

“Ripple – ”

“Ripple can't lay off the high ones... which is why I told you to pitch it high. C'mon, Buck, you know I know these guys. Don't you trust me?”

He met Steve's eyes. “You know I do.”

Something passed between them. Moments like this, Steve was sure Bucky had finally figured it all out, and he didn't know whether to be gratified or put out by his patience.

He curled his fingers through the cage of his mask and drew it back down over his face. “Follow my damn signals,” he ordered, and hoofed it back to the plate.

And damn if Bucky didn't strike out the next three batters like it was the easiest thing in the world.

  
  


  
  


_that night..._

“I can't _believe,_ ” gasped Steve, “that you got drunk.” 

Steve was winded and sore from dragging the other man the quarter-mile between the bar and his apartment. Not to mention the game from five hours ago.

He gritted his teeth and hauled Bucky around the landing bannister. It was a little like trying to haul a bag of cement that happened to have legs, or rather, the notion of legs. Steve tried propping him against the wall for a moment while he retrieved his key; it took three tries before Bucky stayed mostly upright. 

“Stevie,” said Bucky, smiling at him sweetly with half-lidded eyes. “Stevie, Stevie.”

“I'm surprised you can even recognize me, the state you're in,” he said. He watched with a sour eye as the smile crumpled a little. He quickly bent to get his key so he could safely roll his eyes where his friend wouldn't see.

Bucky struggled to straighten up against the wall beside the door. “Hey, Stevie, you mad at me or something?”

Steve got the key in the lock and pushed the door open. He said, very evenly, “Why would I be mad, Buck?”

It wasn't like he had spent years carefully managing this attraction between them, holding back and stepping away before it ever got to be too much, or that this night was supposed to be a real reckoning. It wasn't like he'd had to stop himself from jerking off ten times since the locker room, or that he'd worked himself open for forty minutes before heading out to the bar earlier.

“It's frustrating, isn't it, Steve,” said Bucky, abruptly switching from wavering in place to leaning beside the door on one hand, “when you find out your best friend has been deceiving you?”

Steve stared at his smug smile. 

“You were faking it? At the bar and – the whole way here?” Bucky lifted his uninjured shoulder in an infuriating shrug. Steve blinked and narrowed his eyes. “How many other times have you faked being drunk?”

Bucky leaned in and said, biting the words out, “You will never know.” And before Steve can respond, Bucky grabbed him by the back of the neck and shoved him inside the apartment. He kicked the door shut after them.

They met in the middle of the room, colliding like an unstoppable runner meeting an immovable baseman. Steve dragged Bucky's head down; Bucky hauled Steve's legs up. They spun and fetched up against the wall with a thump Steve felt down the length of his spine.

“You and your damn plans,” groaned Bucky between searing kisses. He staggered backwards with an armload of Steve and blindly made for the bedroom.

“I dunno, worked out so far,” said Steve breathlessly.

Bucky couldn't seem to decide which he wanted off first, but the man didn't pitch left and hit right for nothing; after a few fumbling seconds, he pulled Steve's shirt open with one hand while working the front of his trouser with the other. Steve didn't make it easy on him, pulling at his shoulder blades – avoiding the tender joint – and generally fighting every inch of air allowed between their bodies like it was a sworn enemy or a Giants batter or something.

Bucky swore. “Would you— _just_ –”

“C'mon, c'mon,” said Steve, tightening his legs around his waist.

“I'm fucking trying—okay, look!” snapped Bucky, giving up and tossing Steve five feet across the room to his bed in the corner. Steve landed on his back with a bounce, bemused and more turned on than he really thought he ought be. 

Bucky stalked towards him, struggling out of his own clothes. “What I don't get,” he said, throwing off his braces and tugging his shirt over his head, his next words coming muffled, “was what the plan had to do with you quitting baseball?”

Steve – waiting impatiently at the edge of the bed on his knees, his trousers gaping open – let his reaching hand freeze mid-air. He said, “Buck, you mention baseball again before you've fucked me, and I swear to you, it won't happen.”

If he was less out of his mind with desire, he probably would've thrown Bucky out of the apartment just for looking so conflicted at the ultimatum. As it was, he didn't give his friend a chance to fail, and made sure his mouth was otherwise occupied until the deed was done.


End file.
